Canterbury student becomes World Champion in Chinese

Canterbury student becomes World Champion in Chinese language

Bradley Meredith, an Engineering student at the University of Canterbury (UC), has won top prize in the international finals of the 14th ‘Chinese Bridge’ competition held this week in Beijing, China.

The ‘Chinese Bridge’ Chinese Language Proficiency Competition is an annual event held in China to encourage excellence in speakers of Chinese as a foreign language. Preliminary rounds of the competition included 800,000 students from more than 97 countries.

Bradley was amongst 133 students from around the world selected to compete in the semi-finals. He travelled to Changsha, China for the semi-finals, which began on 8 July. He then competed in three rounds of the competition and made it through to the final round of six contestants, held on 2 August.

“Although he is a UC engineering student, Bradley has always maintained an interest in Chinese language and culture and continued to study Chinese alongside his other courses. In the competition, Bradley was competing against students with a Chinese major, so his success is a huge achievement,” says Professor Hong Hu, Deputy Director of the Confucius Institute at the University of Canterbury.

In the final round of the international competition, Bradley was first awarded the top prize for Oceania, and then won the overall prize for university students worldwide. His performance was broadcast on Chinese national television.

In the first part of the final round, contestants debated on a topic related to working in China. They then had to give impromptu performances related to China’s history, which were judged on their humour and wit. Finally, the top two contestants had three minutes to answer as many questions as they could on Chinese history, culture, people groups, cuisine or geography. A tie between the contestant from Britain and Bradley meant a further 30 seconds was added, and Bradley won the competition by one question in the end.

As part of his prize, 21 year old Bradley will be awarded a scholarship to study at a Chinese university for a year. The former New Plymouth Boys' High School student is also a talented juggler – a skill he learnt as part of a circus skills group – and is part of a team of free runners and extreme sports enthusiasts who aim to push the human body to its limits and define the art of movement.

Chinese language students from around New Zealand compete in the regional and sub-regional ‘Chinese Bridge’ competitions every year. Representatives are then selected from each NZ Confucius Institute (based at Victoria University, the University of Auckland and the University of Canterbury) to compete in China.

Bradley’s win continues UC’s recent success in Chinese-related achievements. In June, UC was awarded funding from the Prime Minister’s Scholarships for Asia (PMSA) for 30 students to study Chinese Business Practices and Culture for five weeks at Zhejiang Gongshang University, Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province in China.

ENDS

© Scoop Media